by Andre Norton
“What is it, Mei-chou; I came as fast as I… Oh, no!” He had seen the black body. “Who is this?” His voice dropped to a whisper.
“This is Lord Chu, the real First of the First. My teacher. I should not mourn; I should not. He wouldn’t like it. This is as it should be. He has had a full life. He saved me. It was important to him. Important that he die for his student. Important he die this way.” It was all Mei-chou could do to talk. “He dies a hero. Now, at least, I know. I never believed his stories. He was the dragon slayer. He was the legendary torn! Our greatest hero. Legend incarnate. To think I never knew. So much wisdom and courage in one body. Can anyone be this much again? Chu-Chu, my Chu-Chu, Chu-Chu!” She had begun to shake.
“Easy, my little friend.” She was almost hysterical. Ao Rue found himself wishing he could hold her. “There’s still some life. I think I can save him, heal him.” The swirling blue magic rose in his eyes. “Yes, a small spark. Nothing’s broken inside. The fur and flesh will come back. Climb up on my claw while I hold him, Mei-chou; I need to feel you with me.”
Ao Rue carefully slid one claw under Chu-Chu’s brittle body. Covered him in a light clasp with the other. Mei-chou climbed up on top. Blue light began to pulse within his folded claws as he concentrated. She could feel the magics that moved from him to Chu-Chu. They were summer breezes, budding flowers, small things stirring in warmth, awakenings, the warm loam, tender shoots. Despite the moment, she felt good, healthy. Ao Rue lifted his head. He let out his breath in relief. Mei-chou jumped down. Ao Rue opened his claws to let her look within. Chu-Chu was curled up, happily sleeping. His new, pink skin was already covered with a light fuzz, a promise of wonderful fur.
Just as Mei-chou was able to speak again and as Lord Chu began to stir, Pita arrived. She was teaming, sliding, skittering through the rocks and sand. One shoulder was marked with blood where she’d scraped a boulder. For once, a cat didn’t seem to care about being awkward or dirty.
“Pita, you’re a mess. You’re not even smart enough to groom!” Lord Chu had climbed down out of Au Rue’s claw and was standing. He was shaky but working to recover his dignity.
“You old fool, what’s the matter with you. I go out for one second, for one jerboa for myself, so as not to touch your precious larder. And what do you do. You wander off. Get lost. I’ve been all over this mountain looking for you.”
“Watch your tone, silly kitten. How could I get lost? Why I knew every crack of this mountain before you were born. I have been protecting Mei-chou.”
“You’re too old even to protect yourself. Get back to the cave where I can take care of you. Leave this First of the First stuff to Mei-chou; you’re too old.”
“I hardly need your protection, madam.” Nonetheless, he began to move. “I’m not that old. I’ve been doing some dragon slaying.”
“Those stupid, old stories again. You’ve started to believe them yourself.” She walked at his flank, herding him in the right direction. “Don’t give me any of that nonsense. You get your tail to bed. You look terrible. What did you do to your fur? I can’t trust you for a minute. You’ll be the death of me.”
“Just who do you think you’re talking to, pink-nosed Pita! Why I remember when the best you could do was get a teat in your mouth. Don’t use that tone on me, little Pita. It wasn’t so long ago that your eyes weren’t open. Funny thing, you were, stumbling into everything.”
“How dare you, you senile lout.”
As their yelling faded into the distance, Mei-chou smiled. Ao Rue was nonplussed: “Why is she so furious with him? Doesn’t she think he did the right thing, was noble?”
“Ao Rue, how can you be so powerful yet so naive. She’s not angry, just relieved. She loves him.”
“He’s twice her age.”
“Age isn’t the factor. Genuine affection is; loyalty is. Rare commodities in this age or any other for that matter. There are some that say that the young, like Pita, are to be avoided. Too mercuric, too fickle. I don’t know. There are few rules in such things. Look at us. Interspecies friends. Good love? Luck, maybe? More likely the wisdom to pick well. Who knows?”
“Yes, you’re right.” Ao Rue was recovering his poise. “I’m so pleased I found my love, my Nii-kua, now when I’m smart enough to know what she is. She is so special.
She makes me more than I ever thought I could be. It’s good to find the right one.” Ao Rue was obviously proud that he could interpret the moment in his own terms. “Well, try not to be too quick. It’s early yet.”
“Mei-chou, you’re being cynical again. Isn’t Nii-kua at least the equal of Pita? After all, Pita’s only a cat.”
“Only a cat?” Mei-chou quickly stifled her anger. “You might also entertain the idea that fidelity isn’t species-specific.”
“Enough. It’s not up to you to question Nii-kua; she is mine. Anyway, Lord Chu can now rest without being disturbed again.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure. Chaos is loose in the world. We all may yet play roles none of us expected. But that’s something no one can predict. For now, I must thank you. Bless all that’s holy that you were nearby. If you hadn’t seen us.” Mei-chou let her voice trail off into a future she didn’t want even to think about.
“I didn’t. I was off listening to the whales sing. You called me!”
“I did?”
“Well, I heard you. Now that I think of it, how can that be? I know dragons and cats are bound, but telepathic contact?”
“Maybe great moments do summon great powers. We’ll probably never know. Now I must go fix something. I never believed he was a hero. It just seemed he was born old, a creature of mind, not courage. I need to tell him he is a hero and, more importantly, that I know.”
“I have to go, too. As much as I’d relish going after Han Chung-li, I have an important kaochang; I hate meetings. Do you think Lord Chu will listen to you?”
“Chu-Chu? He’ll make fun of me, but it’s something I have to say. And he’ll listen. He’ll pretend not to, but he’ll listen.”
Critical Cats by Susan Shwartz
So much they know, those two-legs. So many words they have for what they think they know. Like the way they take away our names, replacing them with noises of their own. They make a lot of noises.
I have learned to turn my head away when the two-legs push through the door here. The bells above the door ring, startling decent Folk into breaking off their leaps. All the other two-legs stare rudely as the newcomer, its face sat and sad, sets down a box holding yet another of the Free Folk, who is sick. Those who share my dish in this place of strange smells, cold ground, and unexpected aches sniff at the two-legs and purr for them: but not I.
There is little good in pleasing two-legs, as my kindred, trapped in small cages and waiting for the two-legs healers to hurt them, could tell you.
The two-legs who come here call me Puff. A foolish name, but I have learned that the words “Puff doesn’t warm up to people” do keep the other two-legs away. I do not know my own true name. Two-legs took me away too early from my mother and dumped me in this place, where the air reeks of fear and pain and the bitter waters that the two-legs bathe us in or make us drink.
Any Soulhealer of the Free Folk knows better, not that I know so much about them. Lick the hurt. Keep the injured creature warm. But let the willing spirit go. Two-legs, I suspect, do not have Soulhealers. Instead, they have two-legs wrapped in loose white pelts, who rush from room to room to run clever hands over the Free Folk or prick them with thorns. Because they do not have quiet, hidden lairs, they make places like this one where two-legs come in with water pouring from their eyes as they bring in the Free Folk they have captured. Some of these Folk are simply scared or spoiled-idle beasts who have forgotten their pride because life is easy and food is free.
Night, though, is the bad time. At night, the two-legs lug in what they call the “critical cats.”
Truly, these kindred of mine are not “critical.” They are simply ready to star
t on their Hunt, abandoning the bodies they have outlived like a gnawed bone. But foolish two-legs pull them back.
I said that I, Puff, do not go to the two-legs and let them stroke me. Nor do I watch them. Not where they can see me do it. Still, I learn much. They are a troubled lot, but they make their trouble for themselves.
This past night, they have come in again with the trapped Free Folk they claim to “own.” Too many have brought with them kittens of their own breed. They watch with even more fear than they study what they call “their cats.” What a breed they are, these two-legs. Outcasts of their kind turn on their kittens and they fear to fight back!
“Puff isn’t comfortable with children,” says the two-legs who sits behind a low wall and stops a bell from ringing by talking to it. Usually, then, a two-legs bats away its youngling, which saves me from a pounce by a staggering two-legs kit. It is dangerous to approach such kittens. Two-legs will let others of their kind hurt their young; but the bad manners that would earn our kittens a swift cuff must go uncorrected, lest I start to hunt the Dreamtrails before my body is outworn.
I run from where the two-legs and the sick Folk wait into the inmost lairs where the food bowls are. Enticing smells of meat and fish rise from the bowls. The other two Folk who live here, Fenster and Purvis, are not around. For the moment, all the bowls belong to me.
“There you are, Puff! We need your help, boy!”
Big hands sweep me up. The food was just a trap! I squall and kick out with my strong hind legs, but the two-legs female holds me fast. So clever they are, those two-legs, with their deft hands. So much they take from us.
The two-legs holds me. Her littermate brings up a stick that buzzes like hornets and chews away my fine full ruff. Bitter water splashes upon my now-bare hide. I see the glint of the thorns the two-legs healers use, and I kick wildly.
“Now, be good, Puff!” I hear, and a hard hand scruffs down upon my neck. Trapped like the Folk outdoors! The thorn in the eldest’s hand pricks me and hurls me out into the sleep that has no Dreamtime.
When I wake, I know the two-legs have taken something else from me-strength. Now I lie in the inmost lair where the smells of bitter water and sick, frightened Free Folk make my nose twitch. Gum clogs my eyes, and I feel weak, like a female after her first litter. My breath pants in and out.
“Puffs awake now. Here, Puff. You were a good boy.” A piece of chicken, too cold from how they keep it fresh, drops beside me. I wrinkle up my muzzle and turn my face away. Let them worry.
Bloodscent tinges the air: mine. This time, the two-legs have stolen my blood itself from my poor body while I slept. What won’t they sink to? I trace the scent over to a cage. One of the Folk is lying in it on the special cushion that brings the warmth of sunlight to lairs where the only light comes from the walls.
The newcomer is of a fine size. He has a deep, sleek coat, except where his neck is bound with cloths. They smell of bitter waters and hold in place the clear, hollow thorn that feeds my blood into his throat.
He twitches and flexes his paws. They have seven toes, and that, as all Free Folk know, means strength and craft. I fight up onto my haunches, nip up my bribe of chicken to give me strength and walk unsteadily to stand before him.
He opens his eyes, and I am trapped. His eyes are huge and wise as the full moon, full of shadow from the Dreamtrails. And then I know.
“I greet my younger brother,” purred a voice inside my head, “and thank him for his gift, which makes me strong.” For now, the sense came, though the voice does not admit it.
I drop my head to my paws. I would bow further and show my underbelly, but the stranger flicks up a corner of his lip: no need. Respectfully I curl my tail around my haunches and set myself to listen. It is not every day that one meets a Soulsinger; cut off too early from my mother’s teaching, I have never met one before.
My fur fluffs up and I start to squall with rage. It was his time, yet two-legs had drawn him back, him, a Soulsinger, and stuck him with their awful thorns. How dare they?
“Be quiet, or you’ll bring them here,” he warns. Again, he uses the inner voice. “Yes, we can talk thus. Your blood is in me, as much as if the same female had borne us.”
He looks as if he has to fight to raise his head. He closes his eyes, and I know he fights his body for more strength.
Why would a Soulsinger fight the call? Surely the Dreamtrails can hold no fear for him.
“Do you wish to take the Trails?” I ask. So clever these two-legs are, yet it is not hard to puzzle out their tricks. I could open that lock, dislodge the thorn, and send the Singer forth.
The Singer twitches his head: no. When his eyes blink open again, they are calm. The leafshadow has grown dim.
“I would not profane your gift by wasting it. Stay and talk with me.”
“What is your name?” A Soulsinger, he has the right to ask that, and I, the obligation to reply. Untaught in the ways of the Free Folk I may be, but I know what is owed to those who deal with souls.
Not knowing my true name, I put my nose down again in shame. “I am called Puff,” I say, wrinkling my muzzle in contempt for the two-legs sound.
“Perhaps you are too big and strong for a Puff,” he agrees, then pauses. “I am Merlin.”
“That is a two-legs’ name,” I sniff before I think.
“My name,” he corrects me. “I am a named being, named by my human after a Soulsinger and healer of the human kind. Many songs come with this name, my human says. He who bore it hunted in a great wood and was accounted very wise in human dreams-which, you may be surprised to know, are as rich as our own. My human gave me the singer’s name, but I have taken it for my own.”
He holds his head proudly, despite the thorn. Then his eyes soften, fond as a tabby with one fine kit.
“Did you see my human when she brought me in?” he asks.
Was it for his two-legs he had stayed? I would not have thought a Soulsinger could be so great a fool. And yet, there it shone in his eyes. Love for a two-legs. Worry for a two-legs, though he was the one who was ill.
I start to tell him I do not look at two-legs, but those wise, troubled eyes force me to hunt back on my memory’s trails. His human-there had been just one. Had she brought a kitten of her own? No, not that one… I shut my eyes… yes!
“The short two-legs with the long head-fur. The she who yowled all the while she brought you in-was that your two-legs?”
Merlin glares at me. “You should not call them two-legs.”
“We are the People, the free kindred. They are just two-legs.”
“You can still be polite!” A hiss tinges his mind-voice.
“The… person,” I correct myself, unwillingly obedient. “I saw her.”
“She is a fine human,” Merlin tells me. “I do not wish to leave her. We have been together all my life. Kind hands, a soft voice, a generous heart. And pleasant to look at, once you know how to judge humans as they judge themselves.”
Sickness had turned his brain. What a disappointment! Cut off so early from my kin, I had hoped to learn more of the ways of the Free Folk from this Soulsinger. And instead, what does he do? Maunders about a pretty two-legs. Some Soulsinger, indeed.
“She looks like the kind of two-legs who would feed a kitten till he cried with pain, but walk past a starveling stray,” I snarl.
“I was a stray! You speak with less sense than a sick kitten!” This time, Merlin uses his voice as well as his mind. His yowl would have sent me flying against the wall if it had been a swipe of his paw. With it came an image of his human, crowned with light, bringing food to the Free Folk who rove the back streets. Wary they are, but they do come to her call.
Merlin’s anger brings the youngest two-legs over fast. “Puff, are you bothering poor Merlin? Get down, Puff. Merlin’s sick.”
Her littermate calls over a shoulder. “Get him ready. Ms. Black is here to see him.”
Both two-legs firm their lips and shake their heads.
/> “She’s very upset, isn’t she?”
“She’s always upset. She’s crazy about that cat. Look how she always gets one of us to come and sit for him when she goes away. And brings us gifts, too.”
“He’s a neat cat. Dr. Colt and Dr. Bell are worried about him. He’s how old-thirteen? And he had this last year, too?”
“Dr. Bell says it’s worse this time.”
“It hasn’t been a good week,” sighs the elder two-legs. “That carriage-snatcher… there’s lots of crazies. You haven’t been here long enough to remember, but I do. Forest Hills used to be safe. You expected trouble in Manhattan, but not here. Now, we have people climbing in windows, and people grabbing babies right off Austin Street. Did you see how many people brought their kids in to office hours today? They’re scared to leave them out of their sight.”
“They drove Fenster and Purvis crazy. Puff ignored them.”
“That’s Puff for you. He was a good donor for Merlin today. Come on, Merlin. Good cat, pretty cat. Here we go. Want to see your mommy?”
The youngest two-legs lifts him from the cage. He protests and struggles a little. But “Merlin… Merlin…” they practically sing his name, and he is calm again. He rests his head against the shoulder of the she who holds him, and lets her run gentle hands over his fur. It is still glossy, with its ordered markings of night and moonlight, but I think it will dry out fast. I also think that the Soulsinger is enjoying the attention.
“Shame on you, Puff, upsetting Merlin.”
The door swings wide. Borne out to see his two-legs, oh, very well, his human, Merlin flicks a sly, triumphant glance at me.
I follow him out. Once again, Merlin’s she is talking, with salt water running down her hairless face. She smells scared and sad. As he sees her, he tries to lunge from the arms of the one who-holds him. As his two-legs sees him, her whole face shines. She does not smell as unhappy as she had.
