They raced through nearly complete darkness, relying on their whiskers and keen hearing: these shafts were almost devoid of the luminous earth that lit most of Vastnir. They stumbled against stones and over roots in the floor; several times in their panicked flight they ran into earthen walls, rose, and ran on.
Eventually they had to slow down. They were completely lost, and had passed an uncountable number of branch tunnels in the darkness.
“I think we will be trapped here forever!” gasped Roofshadow as they loped along.
“If we keep our left sides to the wall, and keep turning outward, eventually we must come to one of the exit tunnels—at least I hope so,” wheezed Tailchaser. “Anyway, it’s the only thing I can think of.”
Faint sounds whispered up from holes and cross tunnels. Some were the distant noises of Vastnir rising from the main chambers. Some, though, were unidentifiable—moans and whispers, and once the sound of something large splashing in a deep pit. They walked carefully around the pit, and by unvoiced agreement did not speak of the noise that had wafted up from its depths. They kept turning outward, and the noises of the mound became fainter and fainter with each bend.
The air seemed to be getting chill; when Fritti commented on it, Roofshadow pointed out that they were approaching the surface, leaving the unnatural heat of Vastnir. It did not feel like the cold of winter to Fritti, though. It was a deep cold, but damp and moist. It felt as though they were running through a thick fog. The air near the opening of Roofshadow’s tunnel had not felt this way. He saw no sense in arguing, however, and restrained his objections.
Moving down what seemed to their ears and whiskers to be a broad, high-ceilinged corridor, Tailchaser heard a different sound: something that—though faint—sounded like the padding of soft footfalls. He mentioned it quietly to Roofshadow, and they slowed to an almost silent walk, straining their ears. If they were footfalls, they must be quite far back to be so nearly inaudible. The twosome increased their pace slightly.
The hallway, such as it was, narrowed suddenly. They found themselves in a low tunnel so suddenly that Tailchaser cracked his forehead against the roof. This tunnel wound and dipped, then rose again, as if it had been dug among large rocks or other massive obstacles. Fritti and Roofshadow crouched low to the ground and reduced their pace to a near-crawl. Finally, the burrow opened out into another wide, well-planed chamber.
They had progressed several steps when Tailchaser noticed a difference.
“Roofshadow!” he hissed excitedly. “There’s light!”
There was, although it was noticeable only in contrast to the dense blackness through which they had passed. The glow came from around a corner at the far end of the massive hallway, faint and indirect. It did not seem to have the same quality as the luminous earth.
“I think we’re near the way out!” said Roofshadow, and for a moment Fritti thought he could see the gleam in her eye. They broke into a fast walk, then a run—able now to see the obstacles, massive tree roots and stones, which loomed black against the faint gleam at the end of the great hall. The air was still chilly, but drier; dust was everywhere, so much dust.
He had bounded ahead of Roofshadow, who reared suddenly, crying: “Tailchaser! Something is foul here!” Then one of the black shapes between them rose up, and with the movement the air was suddenly full of a sickly, spicy odor. Roofshadow squeaked—a strange, throttled noise—and Fritti stumbled to a halt.
Both cats stood as though paralyzed. A dry voice, like the sound of branches rubbing together, issued from the dark shape.
“You shall not pass,”
it said. The words were faint, as if spoken from a great distance away.
“You are the Boneguard’s now.”
“No!” boomed a new voice. Unbelieving, frozen with an odd, exalted terror, Tailchaser saw the sunken eyes and malformed face of Scratchnail suddenly appear out of the darkness behind Roofshadow. The gray fela, overwhelmed, sagged in place and lowered her head.
“I took them from Hissblood and his Toothguard. These two are
mine!”
Scratchnail growled, but moved no closer.
“You have no claim,”
whispered the odd, sighing voice.
“No one may interfere with Bast-Imret. I do the bidding of the Lord of All.”
The Boneguard moved, swaying slightly with a leathery, folding noise, and the Clawguard chieftain quailed, reeling as if he had been struck.
“Take the fela, if you wish,”
continued Bast-Imret.
“Our business is with the other. Go now. You tread in deep places.”
Scratchnail, whimpering with some unseen injury, leaped forward and grabbed the unresisting Roofshadow by the nape of the neck, then turned and disappeared down the dark, cluttered tunnel. Fritti tried to call out after Roofshadow, but could not. His joints tingled with the effort as he tried to pull away and run.
The dark form of Bast-Imret turned—cat-shaped, but sunken in clinging darkness, even while facing the glow at Tailchaser’s back. Fritti could not look at its face, at the dark spots that should have been eyes. Head averted, he struggled—and for a moment succeeded. His legs felt like water, but he managed to turn around and crawl agonizingly away from the Boneguard.
“There is no escape,”
whispered the wind.
No, thought Fritti,
it isn’t the wind. Run, you fool!
“No escape,” breathed the wind, and he could feel himself weakening.
Not the wind, must escape, must escape ...
“Come with me now”
—it was not the wind, he knew that. He continued crawling.
“I will take you to the House of the Boneguard,”
droned the unfeeling tones of Bast-Imret in the darkness behind him.
“The pipes play always, in the darkness, and the faceless, nameless ones sing in the deep places. There is no escape. My brothers await us. Come.”
Fritti could hardly breathe. The smell of dust, spices, and earth dizzied him ... permeated him ...
“We dance in darkness,”
chanted Bast-Imret, and Fritti felt his muscles stiffening.
“We dance in darkness, and we listen to the music of silence. Our house is deep and quiet. The earth is our bed ...”
The light seemed brighter. Tailchaser had nearly managed to reach the bend in the tunnel. He blinked his eyes, dazed. Without warning, the dark figure of Bast-Imret was before him, blocking the end of the hallway. A dry, poisonous air seemed to blow out from the Boneguard. Choking, Tailchaser sagged to the floor, unable even to crawl. The creature stood over him, faraway voice crooning unfamiliar speech.
Terror surged through him, hot panic, and somewhere he found the strength to lunge forward. As he struck, he felt the dusty fur give against his momentum. Bast-Imret crumpled with a sound like snapping twigs, clutching at Fritti as he tried, with what seemed his last dying strength, to push past. Beyond the tunnel’s edge lay a pool of light. He strained toward it, and the freedom it represented.
But the Boneguard clung, and in the darkness the choking dust and sweet smell enwrapped the two of them like another shadow. Fritti felt the paws of the Boneguard—brittle, but strong as tree roots splitting rock—curl about his neck. The flaking, dry snout quested for his throat. With a final squeal of revulsion, Tailchaser lashed out.
There was a hideous tearing sound as he pulled away from the creature. Great, flayed rags of crumbling fur and skin came off in his claws and teeth—and as he tumbled toward the light he could see the dull wink of old, brown bones, and the grinning skull of Bast-Imret.
As he scrambled up the short shaft he felt a searing pain. The space between his eyes throbbed and burned. When he reached the hovering, gray-blue. disk of sky, he turned for a moment—and saw the terrible thing behind him. It was standing in the shadows of the tunnel’s base, its skeletal mouth slowly opening and shutting.
“I will remember you until the stars die ...”
cursed the distant, toneless voice. The fire in Fritti’s head flared again, then was gone.
Tailchaser forced himself over the edge of the hole. The light was so bright that spots floated before his eyes. Hobbling, almost falling forward, he struggled away from the hole—away from Vastnir.
The world was white. Everything was white.
Then, everything was black.
3
PART
24
CHAPTER
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird
That broodest over the troubled sea of the mind
Till it is hushed and smooth!
Pain and weariness battled beneath Tailchaser’s fur. High in the sky hung the cold, burning stone of the sun. The world was shrouded in snow; trees, stones and earth mantled in an even, white sheath. Little needles of chill pain pricked Fritti’s feet as he stumbled through Ratleaf Forest.
Since recovering consciousness, he had staggered near-blindly, putting distance between himself and the mound. He knew he had to find shelter before Unfolding Dark, when the gruesome shapes would come up from the tunnels below, hunting him....
The snow behind him was dotted with red.
Late afternoon found Fritti still in helpless, unthinking flight. He was weakening rapidly. He had not had anything to eat since what must have been the morning of the previous day; that had been—as was usual for the tunnel slaves—barely sustaining.
Tailchaser had now penetrated into deep forest. Columns of trees pillared the forest roof; the ground everywhere was shrouded in ice. Fatigue and glare made his eyes burn and tear, and from time to time he imagined he saw movement. He would stop, hun ker down on the cold snow blanket with pounding heart ... but there would be nothing, nothing: a static world.
The life of the old forest now driven out by the foulness growing near it—or so it seemed—Ratleaf made no sound, but silently heard the crisping of his pads; made no movement, but motionlessly observed his struggle.
As the day wound forward and the biting soreness in his nose, ears and paws disappeared, to be replaced by a puzzling blankness of sensation, the illusion of subtle movement would not be laid to rest. From the corner of an eye Fritti glimpsed scuttling, shadowy presences; when he turned his head, though, only snow-laden trees met his gaze.
He was beginning to wonder if he was not indeed mad, as shadow-haunted as old Eatbugs, when one of his sudden glances caught the gleam of an eye. It was gone immediately behind the tree branches that had framed it, but it had been an eye: he was sure of it.
When another minute, peripheral movement caught his attention he did not turn but staggered on, watching with a sort of half-deranged slyness. In the extremity of his weariness he did not even consider the possibility that it might be a stalking enemy. Like a kitten playing with a dangling vine—first coy and uninterested, the next moment leaping for the kill—he could only think of the moving object; catching it, putting an end to the game.
Head down, the crimson drops staining the snow more irregularly now, Fritti saw a brief flash of something dark and swift in the trees to his right. Seemingly unaware, he pitched the uneven progress of his march slightly to that side until he was a jump or so from the edge of the copse.
Another flicker of activity just ahead—he had to restrain himself from springing.
Carefully now, carefully ...
He stopped for a moment; he crouched down and licked one of his bleeding paws, all the time tensing his muscles, ignoring the twinges of pain, waiting ... waiting for another movement ... there!
Leaping, half-tumbling, Fritti crashed through the underbrush, paws flailing. Something had been knocked from the low-hanging branches and was scurrying before him. With a surge of strength he sprang.
As his paws made contact he cracked headfirst into a tree trunk and rolled stunned onto his side, something small and warm struggling beneath him. Holding whatever it was down with a forepaw, he rose and shook his head. He did not feel injured, he thought—not hurt, but tired ... so very tired ...
For the first time he looked blurrily down on his prey. It was a squirrel, its eyes bulging in terror, lips drawn away from long, flat teeth.
Rikchikchik,
he thought to himself.
Something about the Rikchikchik
...
are they bad to eat? Poisonous?
He felt as if his head were buried in snow.
Why so cold? Why can’t I think? Squirrels. Something I should say to this one?
He thought hard. Every idea seemed another difficult step to be taken. Looking down at the small body and trembling, brushy tail, he felt a glimmer of memory. He lifted his paw from the Rikchikchik, who lay motionless, staring up at him with panic-bright eyes.
“Mrrik ... Mrikkarik ...” Fritti tried to remember the sounds. He knew he must say it. “Mar ... Murrik ...” It was no use. He felt a great, soft burden settling on his back, buckling his legs.
“Help me,” he choked in the Common Singing. “Help me ... Lord Snap said to tell you ... Mrirrik ...”
Tailchaser collapsed to the snow beside the startled squirrel.
“Now, you-you cat: you speak brrrteek, why say brother name Lord Snap?”
Above Tailchaser’s head, clinging upside down to the trunk of a tree, was a chubby old squirrel with a bent tail and glittering eyes. Behind him, showing less courage, a phalanx of Rikchikchik peered down the trunk and between leaves at Fritti.
“Talk now—talk!” squeaked the squirrel-leader. “How know Lord Snap? Tell-tell!”
“You say Lord Snap is your brother?” asked Tailchaser, trying to clear the cobwebs from his mind.
“Most certain yes!” chittered the squirrel a trifle disgustedly. “Snap is brother of Pop. Lord Pop is I—you see, so-silly cat?”