“You have destroyed me, you little sun-rat,” he snarled. The Clawguard swiveled his head from side to side in confusion, looking up into the farthest reaches of the cavern.
“What has happened?” he screamed. “What has happened to my ...”
A hideous, grinding roar, and then a great wave of gray rock passed before Fritti’s eyes, obliterating Scratchnail from his sight. Then this too was gone; suddenly, Tailchaser was alone on the ledge. Painfully turning his head, he saw the last of the sliding rocks careen down the sloping stone wall below him and, with a great splash, disappear into the swollen river. Of Scratchnail there was not a trace.
Fritti pulled himself upright and clambered laboriously over the broken remains of the avalanche, then went limping up the winding path. The cavern was shaking in earnest now; the water below leaped and danced in mighty spouts that climbed toward the cavern’s roof. The heat was oppressive: Tailchaser had to exercise all his resolve not to lie down where he was and not move again.
He reached a tunnel leading out. Behind him, the cavern of the Flume was threatening to shake itself to pieces. He numbly put one foot in front of the other and trudged on until he could walk no farther, then fell prone to the tunnel floor. He could dimly see what seemed by happy fancy to be a patch of sky. The tunnel walls, too, were quivering.
How funny,
he thought distractedly.
Everyone knows there is no sky below the ground... !
The last noise he heard was a rending crash from the cavern below. It sounded as if every tree in Ratleaf had fallen at the same time. Then the tunnel collapsed behind him.
30
CHAPTER
Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed labyrinthical soul!
—John Donne
Spring was bursting and crawling, pushing forth irreverent scents and smells—the very ground beneath Tailchaser’s back was warm with activity and renewed life. Soon he would get up and stroll back to his nest, to his box on the porch of the M‘an-dwelling ... but for now he was content to sprawl on the grass. A breeze ruffled up his fur. He waved his legs carelessly in the air, enjoying the cooling effect. Eyes closed, a long day of Squeaker-dandling and tree-scuffing behind him, he felt as though he could lie this way forever.
The feathering wind brought a tiny squeak, faint as the gleeful cry of a vole finding vole-treasure deep within the earth. Deep, deep within the earth. Again the cry came—louder, now—and Fritti thought he heard his name. Why would anyone want to disturb him? He tried to recapture his pleasant reverie, but the imploring voice became more insistent. The breeze increased, singing past his whiskers and ears. Why should his perfect day be spoiled? It sounded like Hushpad, or Roofshadow: felas were all alike, treating you like an old stoat until they needed you, then following you around and yowling as if they’d hurt themselves. Ever since he had brought Hushpad back from ... from ... where had he found her? It hadn’t been more than an Eye ago, since ...
“Tailchaser!” That cry again. His brow furrowed, but he would
not
condescend to open his eyes. Well ... maybe just to take one quick look ...
Why couldn’t he see anything? Why was it all black?
The voice cried out again, sounding as though it were disappearing down a long, dark tunnel ... or as if he were falling away himself ... into the darkness ...
The light!
Where was the light?
Somebody—or something—was licking his face. A harsh, insistent tongue rasped across the sorest parts of his mask, but when he tried to pull his head away, that pain was worse. He lay back, resigned, and after a while little spots of light began to appear before his eyes. He could make no sense of these swirling, leaping points, but his nose finally distinguished a scent that was familiar. The floating specks began to coalesce; like tall grass pushed aside by a paw, the blackness slid away.
Roofshadow, with a look of fierce concentration, was washing his muzzle with her rough pink tongue. Fritti could not focus his eyes well—she was very close, and the effort was painful—but her smell confirmed it. He spoke her name, and was surprised when she did not react. He tried again, and this time she drew back and stared, then called out to someone he could not yet see: “He’s awake!!”
Fritti tried to greet her, to tell her how glad he was to see her in the fields of the living—if that was where he was—but before he could do more than make a sound, he slipped back into darkness again.
When he awoke later, Roofshadow had been joined by a large, shaggy red cat. It took him a long time to recognize Prince Fencewalker.
“What ... what ...” His voice was very weak. He swallowed. “What happened? Are we ... on top of the ground?”
Roofshadow leaned forward, green eyes warm. “Don’t try to talk,” she said soothingly. “You’re safe. Fencewalker brought you out.” Fritti felt a weak, irrational stab of jealousy.
“Where’s Pouncequick?” he asked.
“You’ll see him soon,” she said, and looked up at the Prince. Fencewalker beamed down with bluff good spirits.
“Worried about you. Didn’t think ... just worried, we were. What a row, what a row. Fabulous tussle.” The Prince seemed about to give Fritti a good-natured thump. Roofshadow moved between Fencewalker and his intended victim, who was already tiring.
“Just sleep, and let Meerclar mend,” she said. Tailchaser reluctantly let go his grip on wakefulness. So many questions ...
Fritti found healing in the dream-fields. He soon found that he could sit up, although it dizzied him. A determined self-inventory found no serious wounds. His numerous cuts had stopped bleeding, and Roofshadow’s patient ministrations had cleaned the worst of the matted blood from his short fur. His eyes were swollen—he had trouble opening them more than halfway—but generally he was in good condition.
Roofshadow did not want to answer his questions yet, and would sit patiently silent as he pressed her for information. Fencewalker dropped by frequently to see Tailchaser as he recuperated, but his roving temperament made it difficult for him to sit and talk long. His visits were hearty, but brief.
Fritti’s dreams had not been entirely wrong. The ground
was
warm. The distant reaches of Ratleaf Forest were capped in snow, a white mantle extending into the misty horizon, but the fringe of the forest in which Tailchaser had awakened was green and wet—the thin carpet of grass humid and damp, as though the snow had been suddenly melted away by a hot sun. Roofshadow said that all the area around the mound was that way, but that she thought the snow would return eventually. It was, after all, still the ragtag end of winter.
Days went by, and before long Fritti was up and walking. He and Roofshadow explored the prematurely green forest, padding together through the sodden false spring. Here and there a solitary flafa‘az could be heard singing bravely in the treetops.
Fritti still had not seen Pouncequick, but Roofshadow promised to take him soon. Pounce, too, was recovering, she said, and should not be excited.
Here and there in the unseasonal greenery the startled faces of other Folk would appear, gaunt and staring-eyed. Most of those who had made their way to freedom during the dying Hours of the mound had lingered only a short while, leaving to search for better hunting or to return to home grounds. No spirit of fellowship seemed to tie these survivors: they drifted off one by one as they became strong enough to travel. Only the sick—and the dying—remained with Fencewalker’s band of hunters, and soon even the Prince would lead most of his party back to the wooded bowers of Firsthome. A small guard would be mounted to stay and keep watch on the site.
Seeing these survivors, Fritti wondered aloud about the fate of the uncounted multitudes, masters and slaves, who had not escaped. Hearing this, Roofshadow told Fritti as best she could of the final Hour in Vastnir.
“When we left you with that ... beast,” she said, “I never expected to see you again. It seemed as if the world was coming to pieces.” She walked silently for a while. Fritti tried to say something reassuring, but she stopped him with a curiously stern look.
“Pounce was half dead, bleeding. I pulled him up the last tunnel by the neck. Things were falling, crashing ... it sounded like giant creatures fighting. Finally, we made it out of that place, out into the valley; it was covered with snow. There were others there, too, milling and crying. We were like lost kas, stumbling, falling in the snow. The ground was shaking.”
Their walk had taken them out to the rim of Ratleaf. Before them stretched the rising plain, slick with melted snow, droplets gleaming on the leaves of stunted vegetation. Roofshadow led on, continuing her story.
“I saw someone dashing about, making loud noises and leading Folk to and fro ... it was Fencewalker, of course. I caught up with him and told him what had happened. I’m afraid I was rather ears-back at that point, but the Prince understood. He said, ‘Tailchaser? Young Taitchaser?’—Fencewalker’s not so very old, but he acts as if he’d like to be. Anyway, he said: ‘Can’t have that, not young Tailchaser, must do something, by all means!’ You know how he talks. Well, he gathered up a few of the healthier Folk and I led them all back to the tunnel. I stayed with Pouncequick, whose ... who was very weak and sick.”
“They found you half buried under dirt and rocks, and carried you out just before the rest of the place shook itself down. I didn’t know you were alive for a very long time. I hadn’t been able to bear waiting to find out.”
Fritti was stepping over a twisted root, and missed the expression on the gray fela’s face. Stopping for a moment to shake dry a sopping paw, he asked: “What do you mean when you say the place shook itself apart? I’m afraid I don’t remember the end very well.”
“I’m going to show you,” said Roofshadow.
They toiled awhile longer up the sloping plain, wrapped in thought. At last they reached the edge of the valley in which the mound had stood.
Where Vastnir had once pushed its brooding head up through the valley floor there was now a wide, shallow basin—the ground sunken as if beneath the tread of a league-wide paw. The soil was as black as the wing of a Krauka.
On the way back to Ratleaf, Fritti asked again to see Pouncequick. “He has been with me longer than anyone, ‘Shadow,” he pointed out.
She seemed disturbed by his use of the shortened name.
“I never tried to prevent you, Tailchaser,” she said unhappily. “I just suggested what I thought best.... He’s gotten very strange,” she added after a moment.
“Who could blame him, after what he’s been through?” countered Fritti. “Who could blame any of us?”
“I know, Tailchaser. Poor Pouncequick. And Eatbugs, too.” Fritti looked at her, wondering, but Roofshadow was shaking her head sadly. “I haven’t asked yet, but I suppose I know,” she said. “He was ... well, you were too late to help him, weren’t you?”
Fritti balanced his secret and decided to keep it. “By the time I found him ... Eatbugs was gone.”
And that is mostly true,
he thought.
“Such sad times,” said Roofshadow. “I suppose I should take you to Pouncequick. Tomorrow, all right?” Fritti bobbed approval. “I didn’t know him,” she continued. “Eatbugs, I mean. Understand, I intend no disrespect, Tailchaser, but you have the
oddest
friends and acquaintances!”
Fritti laughed. “I’ll race you back,” he said, and they ran like wildfire.
The muted advent of Spreading Light brought Fencewalker and other guests in its train.
Fritti, pulled taut in a walking stretch, spotted the Prince swaggering through the underbrush, moisture gleaming on his shaggy form. At his side stalked the graceful black form of Quiverclaw. A cry of pleasure from Tailchaser was followed by warm greetings all around, and the three cats, two large, one small, sprawled contentedly and conversed.
“I hear that Stretchslow’s confidence in you was amply filled, Tailchaser.”
Quiverclaw’s grave words made Fritti want to wriggle with pleasure, but the demands of maturity won out over indulgence. “I am honored that great hunters like the Prince and yourself think so, Thane. I must admit that most of the time I was in that place I would have settled for a quick, painless death. I truly would have.”
“Ah, but you didn‘t, did you?” crowed Fencewalker. “That’s the nose-biter!”
“And from what I hear, sent for help by squirrel,” smiled Quiverclaw. “Unusual, but effective.”
This time, Tailchaser’s wriggle escaped suppression. “I thank you both,” he said. “The main thing, though, is that you came. I saw it; it was wonderful.” Fritti sobered. “I also saw ... that thing that Hearteater called up. Horrible ... it was horrible.”
Quiverclaw nodded. “Things like that were not meant to be. Already I have trouble remembering what it looked like, so wrong it was. The os given flesh—I suppose that soon I will be thankful I cannot recall its aspect. But it caused grave loss. Squeakerbane, Harar bless his mighty heart, fell before it—he and others beyond my reckoning.”
“Did ... is Hangbelly ... dead?” asked Fritti quietly. Quiverclaw pondered silently for a moment, then lifted his head with a crooked grin.
“Hangbelly? He was grievously injured ... but he will live.” The Thane chuckled. “It will take more than even that terror to kill old Bounce-Gut.”
Fritti was pleased to hear of the fat First-walker’s survival. Fencewalker smiled, but looked uncharac teristically morose.
“Many, many brave Folk fell,” said the Prince. “The world will not see a gathering of the Folk like that for many seasons-more seasons than the forest has tree trunks. Many good fellows never came up from the ground again.... Bah!” Fencewalker’s pink nose twitched in sorrow and disgust. “Snaremouse, and young Furscuff ... Pokesnout ... the Thanes, scrawny old Sourweed and Squeakerbane ... Dayhunter and Nightcatcher, my fine lads-they died protecting me, you know-they are all down in the cold earth, and we sit in the sun.” Visibly upset, the Prince turned away and curried his tail. Fritti and Quiverclaw stared at the ground between their paws. Tailchaser’s nose felt hot and itchy.